May
1
Caring for the wellbeing of others
Filed Under Leadership, Community
I have come across a couple of stories about caring have touched me for differing reasons.
Firstly, as a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development ( CIPD) here in the UK I get the magazine People Management every fortnight. I have to admit that sometimes it goes onto the shelf ( or into the recycling) after a quick flick through but today I was caught by an article telling the story of living and working with cancer from an employee’s and her manager’s viewpoint. You can read the full article here.
Regular readers will know that a dear friend of mine has undergone treatment for breast cancer over the past year or so. She is really well now. She missed very few days at work. This was her choice. Louise in the story above arranged with her manager to work from home. Some people with cancer find that they are not well enough to work at all. The challenge for any employer is how to deal with this compassionately but with a clear business head too. Steve, Louise’s manager, said “Sometimes I would call her about work even though I knew she was not feeling very well which made me feel guilty…and I think our conversations helped her to focus on something other than the treatment”. But this was an arrangement that Louise says helped her .
Clearly everybody’s story of living with cancer and undergoing treatment is different - but I loved the compassion, friendship and guts that flowed through this one.
The second story is about Christine Wylie who works for a bank. When an elderly customer came in and asked to withdraw £5000 in cash she realised this was an unusual thing for him to do. She knew more about him than she probably realised. She asked in a kindly way what he was going to do with the money and the man said that he had been having some work done on his roof and it was to pay for it. In cash. And the roofer was outside waiting for the money. She actually saw the crook ( by then it was clear ) looking in the bank window obviously wondering what was taking elderly man that he was so keen to rob so long. The police were called. They are still looking for the culprit.
Christine’s caring attitude toward this man meant that his savings were protected and I expect he had some dignity left when it was dealt with. Sadly, there are a lot of people out there who happily prey on the elderly and vulnerable in our society. You can read Christine’s story - along with others of courage and compassion here
